I'll Be Close Behind
by Ruheezuh
Summary: Eponine has spent her whole life with scum and horrible people that somewhere along the line, she starts to believe she's one of them; a creature of darkness, sinful and un-savable - a devil. Then she meets her redemption; the light and the brightness in the dark of her world.


**Disclaimer: You know it, I know it. There's really no more point in saying it.**

The moment she laid eyes on him, she knew he was different. Whether it was his cold and yet gentle stare, or the way he looked down a second after meeting her eyes as if embarrassed, how he looked like an angel in a man's body or maybe it was how his words – though she couldn't understand them all – gave her a sense of hope and made her believe that she could be saved and maybe, just maybe, he would be the one to save her.

She watched from the shadows, trailing behind M'sieur Marius but her eyes following the golden haired leader whose face was set in stone as he spoke in front of his men. For hours, she would just watch; listen to him speak and fall deeper in love with the man she hardly knew. It seemed to be habit of Eponine's, falling for the good she saw in people despite not knowing them at all.

It seemed the allure of goodness, such a foreign trait when you lived and spent your entire life on the street with crooks, thieves and monsters, was what drew Eponine in all the time. She herself did not believe that she was a person worthy of experiencing goodness; after all, she too was a street rat, a killer, a thief, a prostitute and a monster just like all of them. Nothing set her apart but she believed in good, she saw it in others and she wanted, for even just an hour or two, bask in the warmth of the light that seemed to emanate from this angel faced revolutionary leader.

All Eponine knew were the cold dark streets and wet dirty pavements and she'd lived in that hole for so long, digging and digging herself further and further down with the guilt of her sins – the blood of people she would never know, the memories of people who she'd hurt to survive when she knew she deserved to be dead – that she believed she belonged there. She wasn't a victim of circumstance, at least not in her eyes, but she was a victim of her own crimes and all the wrong decisions and choices had brought her to_this_ life. Even when Eponine believed there was no chance of salvation for a person like her, she hoped for it, _yearned_ for it.

The first time Enjolras had laid eyes on the gamine, he felt something pull at his heart, something stronger than the call of France itself, stronger than his love for patria. It was this piece of guilt that twitched in his chest, the tiniest bit of pain that erupted in his chest when his sea blue eyes landed on her tiny, fragile and broken form.

With one look he could tell she was abused, heavily in fact, with bruises on her arms, legs, her face and where there were holes in her dress, there were bruises and cuts. She was obviously starving because she looked as though someone could break her with just a touch; like a gust of wind could break her if it came. Her hair was practically black from all the dust and dirt from the streets and places she'd slept in previously. Enjolras wasn't going to lie, she was disgusting, her face full of dirt and filth, some of her teeth missing and her nails so dirty that they were almost completely covered black.

Her eyes, conveyed a completely different story though. Enjolras was always polite even to the dirtiest of women, never letting his eyes wander too long, never staring at their faces, never seeming like he was ogling them and never meeting their eyes for longer than a fraction of a polite second but with Eponine, once his eyes had met hers, he was stuck; sucked into a void of what he could only describe as perfection in humanity.

Enjolras was a bright boy who knew how to read people despite only needing one glance but when his eyes locked with Eponine's he felt as though he could spend the rest of his life trying to read her by her eyes and never be finished with her story. In them were so much depth; he could see her pain in the hardness of her eyes that she'd learned and grown accustomed to living on the streets, the harsh biting coldness that froze the brown in her eyes that made him shiver, how the iciness melted into warmth and a hesitant tenderness when they were finally staring at each other, the cautiousness and curiosity that flashed in them and then, finally, the hopefulness that shone in her glazed eyes. Hope in him, in their cause, in this revolution.

"Patria," he whispered, as he stared into what little he could find of her soul in her eyes. It was the first time Enjolras had seen a person like that, had truly looked at them and was never fully capable of understanding, of reading the person inside. He was curious, awestruck and though he'd never admit – he was enthralled by the undeniable beauty in her entire being, masked by the grime and street filth.

A second later he was looking a way and the moment was over. He thought he'd never lay eyes on that gamine ever again as she walked out of the café that evening and somehow the thought left him hurting in the chest, as though he couldn't breathe. Had he taken the air along with her that night when she left or had he not realized that in that second their eyes met, she had somehow broken the marble and became the air he breathes; his reason to fight? To his surprise, that wasn't the last time he saw her though. She'd come to meetings, listen attentively at the back; he felt her eyes boring into his chest where his heart was beating erratically and her stare was so intense, holding so many emotions that he almost thought she could hear the drumming of his heart.

He always watched her, kept her in mind and though neither of them planned for it, the angel fell in love with the dirty devil in rags; her life immoral and everything he's stood against and yet, at the same time, everything he's ever fought for. Before they knew it, before the gravity of time and their surroundings could occur to them, they were already silently wrapped around each other's fingers, stuck in each other's webs and there was no getting out of this one, Enjolras knew it the moment he'd finally gotten the courage to speak to her and had gotten an insult right away.

And the first time he kissed her as they were walking down the street on the way to the alley that would be her place of rest for the night, he knew that there was no point in letting her stay there in the streets because he would gladly welcome this devil into his home, let her steal his soul and take everything from him, run him dry of every penny he had if she wanted because he was undeniably in love with patria and if she wanted, this angel would lose his wings for her, come down to the earth and fall for her; he already had.

She couldn't believe it was real, it was like something from the love stories her _maman_ had told her. She knew in her heart as his lips moved, slowly tentatively but lovingly against hers that she didn't deserve this; she didn't deserve him and yet, she wanted him, she wanted his every waking moment, she wanted to be there for every breath he took and every step. This devil would go to hell and back just to be with him but somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew that no matter how hard she tried, no matter what she gave up for this angel, she knew that she was still a devil; a monster and the blood of the innocent was still on her hands – it would always be.

So she would fight by him; stand by him through any fight and any obstacle, she would be with him because he was her redemption, her angel, her blessing from the ever merciful God and she would lose her life, in hopes of redemption and that he go on with his. She would fall a thousand million times for him in anyway.

So when the barricades rose and the fight had grown heated, the national guards pouring into the barricades, the sound of guns deafening them all, pieces of wood crushing still breathing people, the smell of smoke burning their eyes and blinding them she was by his side. She knew this was the end but she also knew that she was ready, ready to die by the side of the only man who'd ever given her hope, the only man who'd ever treated her well, the only man who'd ever loved her and the only man she'd ever love.

It only took this angel a second, a tiny moment in time, to find this monster, this woman who'd believed she had done worse than the devil in her life and it took but just a second for their fates to twist, intertwine and become one. It took less than a second to fall in love and yet almost an entire life time to find each other and all that, could be so easily taken away, stolen in just a second.

She'd been blinded by the smoke for just the tiniest fraction of time and she'd lost sight of him. Unable to open her eyes, she reached out into the smoke, trying to grab for him, trying to feel around for his red sleeve but to no avail. She was lost and there was nothing but grey and darkness around her without him. She'd lost the light and when a shot, louder than all the others rang out, she froze. Her entire form froze up, her eyes unable to open, but willing themselves to and her heart beating so hard and fast that it was painful and she could hardly breathe.

Everything was still. Gone were the sounds of gunfire, the smoke was slowly dissipating, revealing bodies scattered all around, the shouts were ceasing and there was nothing but death, the smell of blood and silence. There was silence for longer than Eponine could tell and when she saw it, that flash of bright red lying on the floor, burning brighter crimson than all the other shades of red on the pavement, she couldn't breathe.

It wasn't like those moments wherein she couldn't move her limbs and she was stuck but rather, her hold on her body seemed to give way and suddenly she weighed a hundred times more and it felt like the world was crashing down. Her eyes were heavy with tears building in them and her hands were limp on her sides.

She felt the earth shake from beneath her and she fell to her knees, her watery eyes never leaving the figure, lying face first into the ground. There was a shrill sound that hurt her ears and it took her a moment to realize that the sounds had come from her and that she was crawling helplessly on the ground, practically dragging herself to the body, her cap falling off and revealing her long brown hair.

When she reached him, he was already cold. Gone was the warmth that Eponine had grown accustomed to in such a short amount of time and when she turned him over to lie his head on her lap, she could see the wounds from the bullets that pierced his heart. His hands were hard and clutching on to a piece of cloth, a piece of her rags from before.

_"No, Enjolras no…" _She sobbed even more at the sight of it. He died with nothing to hold, not a single warm hand of a person, not a warm word from her; he died holding the dirty beat up rag from a dress she'd hated. She couldn't contain the tears, the screams and the world was disappearing from around her and it was only her and Enjolras but even then, she was alone again because this was just his body.

Enjolras was gone.

_"Please Enjolras, no,"_

The sun shined that day. After the smoke had cleared and the sky had been visible again, Eponine had felt the warmth of the sun beating down on her, burning her and yet never scorching her the way Enjolras' touch could. She had thought that when Enjolras would die, it would rain because it would be a moment to grieve but she knew Enjolras was an angel and God was probably talking back what he'd given her to borrow.

It was a comforting thought but she couldn't help but cry because she was along again. Gone was her source of light, strength, hope and love. She had nothing all over again and yet this time around, she truly had nothing, not even her life left to lose. He would be up there and she would remain down here and rot to the end of her days and she realized that even in death, there was no hope for this devil.

_"Don't go where I can't follow you."_

**A/N: Thank you for reading! Feel free to point out any errors. Review, comment, favorite, whatever. **


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